{{short description|American vision educator}} {{Use mdy dates|date=November 2011}} {{Infobox person | name = Margaret Darst Corbett | image = Margaret_Darst_Corbett.png |birth_date = January 17, 1889 |birth_place = Boston, Massachusetts |death_date = December 5, 1962 |death_place = Los Angeles, California | occupation = writer}}

'''Margaret Darst Corbett''' (January 17, 1889 – December 5, 1962)<ref name="Biography">[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b5327263&view=1up&seq=111 ''The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume G'']. New York: James T. White & Company, 1946. p. 103</ref> was an American who promoted the discredited Bates method in an attempt to improve eyesight. She became famous after her prosecution and acquittal on a charge of practicing medicine without a license. Ophthalmologists dismissed Corbett's ideas as quackery.

==Life==

Corbett was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 17, 1889, to Edward Washington Darst and his wife Minnie Ann. Corbett graduated B.S. from the University of California in 1911.<ref name="Biography"/> She trained teachers at Idaho State Normal School during 1911–1913.<ref name="Biography"/> During WWI she was a yeoman first class in the United States Navy Reserve.<ref name="Biography"/> She married Daniel Lithgow Corbett, who died in 1930.<ref name="Biography"/>

She died in Los Angeles, December 5, 1962.<ref name="Biography"/>

==Methods and teaching==

Margaret Corbett met Dr. William H. Bates after consulting him about her husband's eyesight. She became interested in his approach and became his pupil, and eventually taught his methods in her Los Angeles "School of Eye Education".<ref name="Biography"/>

Her specific techniques included the classic Bates method drills, such as sunning, shifting and swinging. She also, like Bates, placed great emphasis on mental drills, and one's attitude to seeing. Amongst her many pupils was Aldous Huxley, who as a result of his education by Corbett was inspired to write ''The Art of Seeing''.

In 1946, Corbett's had 250 trained teachers working at multiple branches across the United States.<ref name="Biography"/> The Bates-Corbett Teachers Association was headquartered in El Cajon, California.<ref>Melton, J. Gordon. (1990). ''New Age Encyclopedia''. Gale Research. p. 62</ref>

==Prosecution and acquittal==

In late 1940 Corbett and her assistant were charged with violations of the Medical Practice Act of California for treating eyes without a licence.<ref name="Biography"/> At the trial, many witnesses testified on her behalf. They described in detail how she had improved their sight and had enabled them to discard their glasses.<ref name="Biography"/> Corbett explained in court that she was practising neither optometry nor ophthalmology and represented herself not as a doctor but only as an "instructor of eye training".

The trial attracted widespread interest, as did the "not guilty" verdict. A bill was introduced into the Californian State Legislature to outlaw such vision education by any practitioner who lacked an optometric or medical license. After a lively campaign in the media, the bill was defeated.<ref name=pollack>{{cite book |last=Pollack |first=Philip |title=The Truth about Eye Exercises |year=1956 |publisher=Chilton Company |location=Philadelphia |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b4399673}}</ref>

==Criticism== Established optometrists and ophthalmologists continue to be unimpressed by Corbett's work. Speaking of her work, amongst others, Philip Pollack wrote{{blockquote|To anyone trained in the science of vision, the ignorance and the sheer absurdity of ideas explained in these books are appalling. The authors by-pass completely the discoveries and the experimental findings of such celebrated scientists and ophthalmologists as Helmholtz, Tscherning, Young, Maddox, Gullstrand, Donders, Duke-Elder, Fincham, etc. Their methods of treatment of defective vision and of diseased eyes are totally without value. ... The ideas of Bates and his disciples, far from being new, are a throwback to medieval habits of thought.<ref name=pollack/>}}

==Works== *{{cite book |title= How to Improve your Eyes |year=1938 |publisher=Willing Publishing Co. |location=Los Angeles }} *{{cite book |title= Help Yourself to Better Sight |year=1949 |publisher=Prentice-Hall |location=Englewood Cliffs }} *{{cite book |title=How to Improve your Sight |year=1954|publisher=Faber and Faber |location=London }}

==References== {{reflist}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Corbett, Margaret Darst}} Category:1962 deaths Category:1889 births Category:Bates method Category:Schoolteachers from Idaho Category:20th-century American educators Category:20th-century American women educators Category:University of California alumni Category:People from Boston